Absinthe : £29bn guzzled around world

EXTRACT FROM DAILY EXPRESS NEWSPAPER: JANUARY 2025 – By DOMINIC BLISS

The alcoholic drink making a shock comeback in UK as £29bn of it is guzzled around world

Once inextricably linked with art, rebellion and madness, and infamously banned in the early 20th century, absinthe is soaring in popularity among young drinkers.

Absinthe, known as the ‘green fairy’, has made a stunning comeback thanks in part to Gen Z fans.

Singer Kylie Minogue played the Absinthe Fairy in the hit Baz Luhrmann movie Moulin Rouge

Vincent Van Gogh was rather fond of absinthe. Like many of the artists of his period, a little too fond, perhaps. It was after drinking the concentrated spirit, in the south of France around Christmas 1888, that he famously cut off his ear.  While the jury is out over whether absinthe affected his decision to self-mutilate, one thing is for sure: this distillation of grand wormwood, anise, fennel and other herbs, is one of the most alcoholic spirits you’ll find in any drinks cabinet – sometimes as much as 74% proof. And if a new report is to be believed, its popularity as a modern-day party drink is growing.

According to the Business Research Company, global consumption of the green fairy – as it is known thanks to its distinctive colour – is currently worth £29billion and expected to rise to a massive £32billion by 2028.

The anise-flavoured spirit is also experiencing a UK renaissance, where bars and distilleries are reporting 40 to 50% year-on-year sales growth and a growing number of high-end cocktail bars where mixologists include absinthe as a key ingredient. Back in the Belle Epoque era, around the late 1800s, consumption of absinthe in France and Switzerland was widespread.

Modern British drinks importer George Rowley helped with overturning the French ban in 2011 and he now distills a range of absinthes in France called La Fée – French for “the Fairy”.

He claims his is the best-selling absinthe brand in the UK. There’s been a rise in demand, he says, since the Covid lockdowns, when people stuck at home stocked up their drinks cabinets with less orthodox spirits so they could mix more adventurous cocktails.  “People are naturally curious,” he adds. “They want a spirit collection to wow their friends with, and to make exciting home cocktails. This is likely fuelled by social media platforms. Add to this the expense of going out and you see people drinking at home more. If they’re going to buy spirits, they’d prefer to buy less, but buy well.”

Rowley, 60, first imported absinthe to the UK in the late 1990s, distilling it in the Czech Republic because of the strict French ban at the time. Before his first shipment had arrived, TV presenter Jeremy Paxman asked him to mix up a cocktail for on the BBC’s Newsnight programme.  Absinthe also came to the attention of Hollywood actor Johnny Depp who was in the UK filming his 1999 horror movie Sleepy Hollow. When Depp requested some absinthe, Rowley obliged, quickly getting a few bottles from Eastern Europe.

“We hadn’t got any in the UK and Johnny Depp wanted a bloody bottle,” he recalls. “What do you do?”  When Depp’s driver turned up at Rowley’s house in Hertfordshire to pick up the elusive drink, he asked him why such urgency.  “He told me Mr Depp was on a private jet the next day, flying back to the US,” Rowley explains. It turns out Depp wanted to share the absinthe with hard-drinking American journalist Hunter S Thompson, with whom he had worked on his comedy film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  “In effect, Mr Depp became our first client,” Rowley recalls.

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